A Staniland on the floor and a Larson on the bench.
That’s the formula for record-breaking basketball that saw Jeff Staniland set the the Ventura High boys program’s all-time scoring record in the 1998-99 season under the guidance of head coach Dan Larson.
Twenty-eight years later, the formula has produced another season for the history books.
Under the tutelage of legendary head coach Ann Larson, as well as husband and assistant coach Dan, Ventura point guard Kai Staniland has put together a legacy-defining senior campaign for the girls basketball program.
“The coach Jeff Staniland you see is pretty much how he played,” Dan Larson said. “He wanted to win every game. The desire, the drive was there regardless of whether it was three-on-three on the outside courts or a CIF championship game. Kai has the same spirit.”
Kai Staniland became just the fifth Ventura County girls basketball player to surpass 2,000 career points while setting program records for steals, assists and 3-pointers. With 314 career 3-pointers and counting, she is the all-time county leader from beyond the arc. She has also helped the storied program reach a major milestone — a 1,000 victories.
She scored 32 points in a 56-40 win over San Marcos on Jan. 6 to join her dad atop the record books as Ventura’s all-time leading scorer in girls basketball with 1,837 career points, moving past Kali Bennett’s mark of 1,820 set in 2007.
“It tells people who the Staniland family is,” Kai Staniland said. “We have always been athletes, but we are known to work for it. We love what we play, we love what we do and the passion that we share for the game.”
But Staniland doesn’t stop to bask, well, except for when she moved past her dad’s career scoring mark of 1,499 points earlier this season. She let him hear all about that.
“That is the one I really wanted to know (about),” Kai Staniland said. “I will never stop talking about it. When I did it, that night when we got home, I am just talking stuff to him. … It’s funny.”’
For the most part, it’s all about chasing the next thing.
“There are so many records that I have broken,” she said. “All I think about is, ‘What can I get next?’ ”
It’s that attitude that has gotten Staniland up out of bed early every Sunday morning for the past four years and into the car with her dad for a 20-minute drive over to his team’s gym on Gonzales Road.
They chat along the way: classes, friends, life. For a father and daughter both juggling busy school and sports schedules, the short trip offers a brief moment to reconnect.
Then, the work begins.
Inside the gym, Kai doesn’t waste any time. She plugs her phone into the gym’s stereo system and cranks up her favorite country artist, Morgan Wallen. Then, she begins to warm up with a shooting routine — the same one she has done for 10 years.
Starting up close, right under the basket, she dials in her shot mechanics. Then she moves out. Two makes per spot, off the catch, the dribble, the sidestep and then floating dribble pull-up she has made her calling card — from all over the court.
Working with her dad, the only basketball trainer she has ever known, Staniland reps in-game skills. She drills footwork, dribble pickups and shooting. Shooting most of all.
It’s that extra time in the gym that has helped her become the first player in county history to reach 100 3-pointers in not one but two seasons in her high school career.
“It’s just kind of surreal and emotional when you see her do those things that she has been working towards all her life,” Jeff Staniland said. “To watch her do it at the school that I played at, for the coaches, at home, friends and family (there), it is tough to put into words. It is something that we, as a family, really appreciate more right now than even she does.”
The pair have kept up the ritual every week since the younger Staniland first got to high school.
“She thinks we are just over there getting better at basketball,” Jeff Staniland said. “As a dad, it’s just like, no man, I need that. I am already getting emotional with her about to leave next year. I am going to be an absolute mess.”
The trainer may not know it, but his player’s favorite part of their weekend workouts is the very same thing.
“Spending time with my dad,” Kai Staniland said. “Not only is he the best coach I have ever had, but to have him as a dad, to be able to hang out with him and ask him anything, just to be around him is pretty cool.”
Sporting success is in the blood of the Staniland clan.
Jeff Staniland’s grandfather, Buster Staniland, was a three-sport athlete at Oxnard High and a Major League Baseball catcher for the Baltimore Orioles.
His dad, Steve Staniland, played at Santa Clara High in Oxnard for legendary coach Lou Cvijanovich before playing in the baseball majors for the Oakland Athletics and St. Louis Cardinals. A rotator cuff injury sent him back to Ventura and, with a year of college eligibility remaining, he played left tackle at Southern Methodist University, blocking for Pro Football Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson.
When Jeff and Stephanie Staniland had their first child, a girl, nobody was all that surprised with how quickly she took to sports — all of the sports.
“It didn’t matter what kind of a ball it was. It could be a football or a baseball or a softball or a soccer ball or a basketball. She just wanted to play,” Jeff Staniland said. “From Day 1, we knew.”
From an early age, young Kai Staniland was with her dad, watching Oxnard boys basketball practices.
She was always a visual learner, perhaps as a result of being born into silence. Staniland was born deaf, due to a condition known as profound hearing loss. On the court, she wears a headband that connects to a pair of cochlear implants allowing her to hear.
“She watched the game differently than other kids,” Jeff Staniland said. “That’s why (she does) some of the things that she does. The feel that she had, the plays that she makes — she has been doing that forever. She was doing that in third grade playing VYBA on the Avenue at Westpark.”
A heralded youth basketball player coming out of middle school, Staniland had a hard decision to make between playing at Oxnard, where her dad taught and coached, or Ventura.
“I grew up going to Oxnard games way more than Ventura games,” Kai Staniland said. “It really just came to the point where my friends and the girls I grew up playing with were going to be at Ventura. I wanted to continue that journey with them, and finish it.”
After finishing as unbeaten Channel League champions at 14-0 for their fifth straight league crown, the Cougars (24-4) were rewarded with the top seed in the CIF-Southern Section Division 1 playoffs for the second straight season. Ventura opens the postseason Thursday at home against Notre Dame-Sherman Oaks. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.
“All the other years have been a little disappointing,” Staniland said. “I really do think this team could go really far. We are super close — it is a gel that I have never really seen before. I am really excited.”
Dominic Massimino is a staff writer for The Star. He can be reached at dominic.massimino@vcstar.com. For more coverage, follow @vcsdominic on Twitter and Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Kai Staniland’s record-breaking season is a chip off the old block
Reporting by Dominic Massimino, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
